The international community is now in a “better place” on Syria due to the government’s losing its parliamentary vote on taking military action last month, international development minister Alan Duncan has said.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative conference in Manchester, Duncan said the UK would have been “perfectly justified to take action after an international treaty had been breached by the use of chemical weapons” apparently by the Assad, but “I think we are perhaps now in a better place than we might have expected to be for a number of reasons”.

He said that as a result of the loss of the vote Russian “involvement in this chemical disarmament process should to a large extent guarantee their no further use".

He added: "Secondly, there’s a chance that because the Russians are there actively engaged we might actually improve humanitarian access [to Syria]. The third element is that there might just be a better chance now than there would have been of getting people around the table for a second round of Geneva talks, because the only solution ultimately to the Syria conflict is a political one, with everyone sitting around the table trying to piece something together and at the very least getting a ceasefire.”

Asked by interviewer Peter Oborne if he was saying he was glad the government had been defeated on this issue, Duncan – who said he was “given leave to remain on holiday” abroad instead of taking part in the vote – said: “I never like to see my government defeated but I think that the consequences that have unfolded since have been serendipitous … I think that the Russian initiative has opened up new alternatives that would not have been there.”

Asked by a Tory delegate whether the whole episode had damaged the UK’s standing in the world, Duncan said: “I don’t think this has dented our reputation. I think there was a very short-term hiccup; I think the world said: ‘Hello, what’s happened here?’ and far from losing respect I think we gained it.”

Referring to the UK’s reputation at the UN, he said: “If you want to compare the engagement and respect of the UK with that of France, there’s no contest.”

After the UK’s vote, the US eventually changed its policy on military action, and Duncan said: “I’m pleased [Barack Obama] has not been forced into a corner where he’s lost face.”

Would he vote for military action in Syria in future? “It’s an immaterial question,” he said.

Duncan would not be drawn on whether the removal of Bashar al-Assad as Syrian president was government policy, but he said: “I think it’s difficult to see a stable future for Syria with Assad at the top. I think it’s very unlikely you’re going to see a future Syria with Assad running it. But he should not kid ourselves that this is just a straightforward, easy, ‘do you like the guy – yes or no?’”

Duncan was also asked if Iran would have a full place at the table at the forthcoming Geneva peace conference on Syria. “Well, not necessarily at the table, in that way,” Duncan said. But he added that Iran was “entering or opening a new chapter” in its relations with the west” and “the initiatives that took place in New York last week are commendable”.

The government lost the vote on possible military action against Syria on 30 August by 285-272, with 30 Tories and nine Liberal Democrats joining Labour to reject the move.